The Idea of Politics in “political” Rhetoric

Th e author claims that analyses of “political discourse” or “political rhetoric” should be grounded in what it is that participants try to do politically with language. Words, actions, and events work together; words interpret events or actions, as well as constitute political facts, while actions in various ways help words gain their political effi cacy. Analyses of political rhetoric (or discourse) should treat discourse as an instrument of doing politics, either in a strategic or constitutive sense, a functional component of the political system and of the rhetor’s political engagements, if one is to avoid the pitfall of metadiscursive interpretation, i.e. identifying rhetorical devices or discursive constructions in a text putatively labeled as “political” through ascription to a “politician” or to a political subject matter or context.